Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences (CBK PAN) has been involved in the development of space penetrators since 1997. The Institute has a lot of experience in developing hammering penetrators, including the flight models of MUPUS for ESA Rosetta mission and CHOMIK for the Russian Phobos-Grunt mission.

Currently Space Mechatronics and Robotics Laboratory is developing an entirely new penetrator called HEEP (High Energy and Efficiency Penetrator), which is several times stronger than any previously developed electromagnetic penetrator.

There is a spectrum of innovations implemented onto HEEP that are dedicated to the increase of efficiency and energy as well as its flexibility for further applications, i.e.:

- new definition of the shape of the electromagnet which drives the system,
- reduction of eddy currents through a new design of the core of the electromagnet,
- completely frictionless suspension of all moving parts of the system and allocation of space for lock and release mechanism of the hammer,
- increase of the capacitance of the capacitor which stores the electric energy,
- eight power settings for controlling the frequency and energy of strokes.

The mass of the HEEP is less than 1.4kg, its power consumption is about 4W (both mass and power can be reduced to 1.2kg and 1-2W if necessary), the energy than can be stored in the system can be operated from 0,34J to 21,4J. As a result, the application of the new penetrator may be far more reaching than just penetrating, including other tasks imposed during exploration missions of celestial bodies, e.g., anchoring of a lander to the surface or sampling solid rocks.